Articles

Pictures: Giulia Massenz

In the framework of the Summer Assembly 2030, the Super Terram team organised a 'dérive' - a semi-programmed exploration of an unknown terrain - on Schaerbeek-Formation. This derelict railway site - the largest open, undeveloped space in the Brussels Capital Region - is little known to Brussels citizens.

During this dérive, some thirty participants explored the site and experimented with alternative approaches to the urban soils it contains. Participants explored the terrain in eight stages. They went from point to point in groups, drawing inspiration from fragments of historical narratives, science fiction, archaeological notes, etc.

The result was a playful, creative and collective wandering from which alternative stories emerged for Schaerbeek-Formation as well as for life related to the soils that are there.

Open air quality data are a powerful, essential force to help us move towards clean air. The good thing is... thanks to projects such as Aircasting Brussels of BRAL and www.influencair.be, you as a citizen can help measure and map local pollution levels! 

On March 3rd, Open Knowledge Belgium is organising a full-day event including talks and workshops on how to build your sensor and analyse, visualise and interpret open air quality data. This event aims to gather all different actors involved in the field of air quality and is absolutely open to everyone who wants to learn more about the topic.

Come and join us to learn, meet and discuss the power of open knowledge!

All the information on the event: https://cleanairwithopendata.eventbrite.co.uk/. 

Who?

• Political persons: all deputies, advisors and specialists of political parties on health, mobility and environment;
• Citizens organizers of various Brussels Air groups;
• Citizen-experts on mob / health / governance on Air pollution.

What?

During our previous exchange - under the form of a speed date on 25/6, citizens listened to the initial ideas of Brussels political representatives. This time, the citizens will help the elected officials to identify following points of action:

• Strengthening of the existing regional framework;
• Legislative... and regulatory ideas for the next executive 2019-25;
• The position of Brussels in relation to the federal government;
• Essential cooperation between the regions and other levels of government;
• Visions and commitments for qualitative mobility;
• Prevention & health protection;
• Citizen involvement in air policy.

This is not a political debate, but a coaching. Citizens aren’t there to judge, but to help representatives to co-construct policies to improve the air quality in Brussels.

This meeting will be followed up by a public event in November, which will evaluate the official party programs for the regional elections in May 2018.

Are you interested to participate in this AIR Coaching? Please register for this event by contacting tim[a]bral.brussels or lievin[a]bral.brussels.

Both urbanism and architecture usually present the ground as an inert and technical surface, defined by the zenith point of view. While the soil is thick, grained, kept alive thanks to the activity of the many living beings that literally pass through it. Soil is more than the material with which our cities are built, or on which they are built. Soil is a critical dimension of the social production of space, inscribed in the history of places, and embodying a series of close links between social and biophysical systems through the food we eat, the water we drink, or the various substances it must absorb (from nutrients to gases whose abusive presence deregulates the environment).

The desire to organize this international encounter is based on recent ideas from ecofeminism and writings on urban metabolism. It wishes to unveil new possibilities to update our relationship to (non)living matter in and around us, so that we can go beyond the city-nature opposition and begin to inhabit a regime where we could be “many”, a collective of associations internalizing the environment. The encounter dwells on a selection of authors who try to think the ontologies and epistemology of a world more than human from the ground, feminists associated with the new materialism who consider the soil as the humus-world at the root of all means of subsistence (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; Cahn et al., 2018; Tsing, 2011), cartographers experimenting with potential soil maps (Ait-Touati et al., 2019), as well as researchers focusing on the soil composition of cities and the symptoms of an “accelerated metabolism” that needs to be revised (Barles et al., 1999; Misrach and Orff 2014). The symposium seeks to oppose them in order to understand what the consequences for our cities could be if we were ready to engage with the soil as a living matter, to avoid trivializing our relationship with the ground that would become the regurgitating foundation of the places we inhabit.

WHAT, SOIL?

21/09/2021 - 12h00-14h00
Speakers : Germain Meulemans & Lola Richelle
Mediator : Serge Kempeneers

SOIL : BEING MANY

22/09/2021 - 12h00-14h00
Speakers : Frédérique Aït-Touati & Koen Roygens
Mediator : Francisco Davila

SOIL CONSTITUENCIES

23/09/2021 - 12h00-14h00
Speakers : Claire Pentecost & Seth Denizen
Mediator : Bruno Notteboom

BEARING SOIL

24/09/2021 - 12h00-14h00
Speakers : Ken de Cooman & Yannick Devos
Mediator: Giulia Verga

OUR COMMON GROUND

24/09/2021 - 17h00-19h00
Closing debate with : Thomas Vilquin, Pauline Lefebvre, Sotiria Kornaropoulou, Benoît Burquel, Alice Paris, (tbc. Serge Kempeneers)
Mediator : Nadia Casabella

Organised by: Faculté d’Architecture La Cambre Horta, Laboratory Urbanism Infrastructure Ecology, ULB, BRAL

In the framework of the ‘Institution Building’ exhibition, in the chapter on Agency, Gideon Boie, Lieven De Cauter and CIVA organize an informal summit on activism in Brussels.

Activism represents the moment of real democracy in the city. It is the moment of true politics: when those who are not entitled to rule turn their noise into voice. Activism animates, performs and transforms public space. All these forms of activisms play out in the City somehow. To narrow down the broad field of activisms, the informal summit will focus on urban & architectural activism and bring together actors of these two forms of activism in Brussels. The City is the focus of urban activism: creating the urban commons. Architectural activism is rare, stemming from a discipline linked to money and power, and yet Brussels has shown an awakening in that field. Architectural activism is ideally reinventing the art of building, the city and the spaces we live in.

The aim of the summit is to deepen collaboration between the different actors and strengthen the unity in diversity of activisms in Brussels. We invite a few ‘very important players’ active in each of the two fields, but of course all of you, active citizens out there, are warmly invited to participate. We look forward to a memorable and lively debate.

11:00: Welcome
11:30–13:00: Urban activism
13:00-14:00: Lunch break
14:00-15:30: Architectural activism
16:00-17:00: The future of urban & architectural activism (conclusions)
17:00-18:00: Reception